The present invention relates to a holder assembly for retaining and displaying a vehicle license plate outside of a trunk door or rear door of a vehicle. The present invention particularly relates to a vehicle license plate holder that, without requiring a key or special tool, protects the license plate from being removed by an un-authorized person.
By law, a vehicle license plate must be displayed at least at the rear end of vehicle. Mechanical fasteners such as screws have always been used for fastening the plate to vehicle body. This presents a risk that the license plate can be removed by an un-authorized person. To prevent such a risk, a variety of lockable devices have been proposed in prior art that require a key or a special tool for removing the license plate. Using key or special tool is inconvenient and undesirable because the vehicle owner must maintain an extra key or special tool. This presents another risk of losing or missing the key or special tool when needed. Furthermore, most of the proposed lockable devices are unattractive in appearance.
Therefore, there is still a need for an improved license plate holder that, without requiring a key or special tool protects the vehicle license plate from being removed by an un-authorized person. The present invention suggests a locking and releasing units to be installed in the holder assembly. The releasing unit penetrates through the vehicle body of trunk door or rear door of the vehicle. To remove the license plate, the locking unit must be unlocked by activating the releasing unit from the interior side of vehicle. The present invention adopts such a novel strategy for protecting the license plate from being removed by an un-authorized person, which has never been disclosed in prior art. The present invention is also capable of protecting the annual registration stickers of the license plate from being removed by an un-authorized person. By law, such annual registration stickers must be displayed at the top right and left corners of the license plate.